My ten-year-old son plays the Dear Evan Hanson soundtrack every single morning on our way to school. If you aren’t a Broadway fan and don’t know the story, it is a story of finding hope in the wake of teenage suicide, and the songs are funny, and sad, and real. The first time I heard…
Last night, my butt was frozen to a folding chair in front of an expectant audience in The Book Exchange, a local Indie bookstore. My throat closed shut and my tongue felt like sandpaper – you know, the coarse kind that could skin a cat. Lined up on both sides of me was a panel…
An Ancestry.com DNA test confirms it. I’m as white as white comes (as if there were any doubt). I burn after 30 seconds in the sun, just like the rest of my family. I come from Kentucky folk who ate biscuits and sausage gravy, ham hocks in their green beans, and went to church.…
Eat to live, or live to eat? I unashamedly admit, that I live to eat. Food is an emotional, cultural, and sentimental piece of my life’s puzzle and I wouldn’t have it any other way. As the southern-born half to a South African-born Indian guy, I have learned to crave spicy masala curried foods for…
My Choice For Women’s Multicultural Books for 2015 Every once in a while, when I have a lull in my mothering and writing schedules, I binge read multicultural novels. Perhaps because I live with mixed up cultures in my own life, or because I am an anthropologist at heart with a passion for studying cultures,…
Great Gatsby Gala “I hated reading the Great Gatsby in high school. Didn’t you?” I asked my husband as I stepped into my new black sequined flapper dress. We were ten minutes late for the gala, and I tore a few beads from the hem rushing to pull it up to my shoulders.…
I got to Starbucks early today and had the privilege of overhearing business people do their schmoozing thing while I worked on the novel. Their conversations of frustration and deceit in their jobs beg to be recorded in writing. Somehow, I’ll find a way to use them. Luckily, I found a corner table to set…
I struggle to see my laptop screen, and I’m sweating in the sun wrapping around me through the glass wall at Starbucks. A couple of women in tennis skirts are sitting at the table beside me, gossiping about booster club politics and a friend, whose teenage son was busted for drinking. I recognize them from…
My growling stomach woke me up this morning around 4:30 am. I am normally not a big breakfast eater, but my belly taunted me relentlessly as I squeezed my insomniac’s eyes shut, praying for just a little bit more sleep. But, suddenly, I opened my eyes, giddy, and buoyantly thankful. Today is the…
My husband and I met twenty six years ago this month on a humid Memphis night. I was sixteen and scooped ice cream at the local Baskin Robbins to earn money for a car. One July night at closing time, with Def Leppard blasting from my smuggled boom box, my co-worker and…